Who Cares About Volcanoes?

Who Cares About Volcanoes?

By Dylan Sawyer

Jan. 3, 2013

Hey. I’m Dylan, but you probably already realized that.  If you’re an ordinary kid like me, you probably hate essays.  I totally get it.  The teacher gives you a topic you don’t even care about, and then you’re forced to do a whole lot of research on it.  I’m not gonna grow up to be some psycho Einstein, anyways.  All I wanna do is get a trusty job at McDonalds and have a burger for lunch for free every day.  And be happy and enjoy life.   Is that too much to ask?  Anyways, this is not about my future career- it’s a dreaded essay on volcanoes.  If the word “essay” just made you fall asleep, I’m with you.  I have a focus span of about 2-3 seconds.  I’ll do my best to wake you up again. (P.S. Don’t snore, it’s impolite.) 

The story begins with Mrs. Pamlock giving us about a week to write an essay on volcanoes.  (The guys call her Mrs. Hemlock because she is the most successful person in the galaxy when it comes to strangling helpless kids like us with vocabulary words and “scientific theories” that don’t make sense.  For example: you get “1 hour” of homework a day that takes 2 hours to look up on the internet. I do 5 hours of television/video games while eating popcorn, and am expected to go outside and play in fresh air and get some exercise too.  I come home at three. I sleep at ten. Where’s the time? I could go on and on…) I have short term memory.  The essay troubled me for about three minutes, and then I forgot.  I’m pretty sure I would have continued to conveniently “forget” until Mrs. Hemlock stepped in and made life a whole lot more complicated.  So on Friday, I walked into the classroom and promptly went to sleep at my desk when the word of the century startled me awake.  (Starting now, I will underline all words that I used the dictionary for.  My vocab was fine by itself, but this is another unnecessary requirement.)  Obviously, chocolate’s the word of the century.  (For you aliens who are watching from outer space that don’t know.)  So anyway, Mrs. Hemlock strode into the room looking all haughty, gave us the usual glare that signified that we were nothing more than wriggling maggots.  And then she said the word. And automatically had the attention of every kid in the class. It was a first-timer.  “Class, the best volcano essay in the class will win a chocolate volcano with marshmallow lava 4 feet tall.  You filthy little maggots don’t deserve it, but the principal will kick me out if I don’t bump up my attitude,” were her exact words. (I wrote it down to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.  Though the second sentence is probably my imagination.) 

Great. Now I was in the biggest dilemma mankind had probably faced since the beginning of time.  Me missing the chocolate volcano? Not an option. Me actually writing the essay?  You’ve got to be kidding.  Under normal circumstances, I would probably cut and paste something from the internet.  But, some geek invented this nifty little device that reads your essay and cuts out the copied stuff.  There would be nothing left in mine.  Plus, I only had the weekend to do it.  I wake up at 2:30 p.m., and then it’s video games from 3 p.m. - 2 a.m.  I’m a busy man.

My computer is on fire.  It’s the first thought I get when my screen blares out at me with a blinding flash.  It’s raining rocks and fire.  The second thought I get when a flaming rock the size of my fist shatters my window and sets the bedcovers on fire.  Seeing my fire-proof Nintendo on fire is what kicks some common sense into my head.  I scream.  I assure you, it’s not a sound you’d like to hear.  And as dark, poisonous smoke fills my lungs and my shoe blazes afire while still on my foot, I black out.  (I would like to note that blacking out is an unpleasant experience.  When I did, I landed on my iPhone 7 advanced, creating a thin crack in the border.)

I was in my least favorite place in the world- a hospital.  There had been a code red evacuation, and the seismic waves that had followed the eruption had reduced my house to a rubble.  I was shivering.  The volcano had been completely unpredicted, and the deadly procrastic flow had traveled for miles.  My entire family was under emergency care, as we were direct victims of the eruption.  I had broken my arm in the fall, so I was condemned to hospital life for two weeks.  I had some nasty burns snaking their way down my ankle, sending spasms of pain through my leg. It stunk.

I will make a confession: maybe volcanoes are worth learning about.  I mean, if some guy had predicted the eruption, the city could have been evacuated beforehand, saving the city a lot of money and damage.  So my life’s ambition has changed- I will now be a volcanic geologist.  Well, guess what?  Having your room catch fire with you still in it really does make you reconsider what you’re going to do with life now that you’re lucky enough to still have it.  So I had borrowed one of the hospital’s junky laptops, and was looking up the volcano that had changed my life- I would never be the same again.  I mean, maybe Mrs. Pamlock had a point all along.  And this is the mind-boggling info that I found:

Kilauea has returned to life, bringing with it, yet another miracle of Mother Nature.  On January 3, this volcano roared to life, replaying history.  Exactly thirty years ago, a similar eruption lit up the sky, ripping the world apart with its fiery mirth.  The citizens living on the southeastern flank of Mauna Loa continue to dance to the rhythm of this historic volcanic eruption to date, the land churning with the volcanic goddess Pele’s wrath.  And now, the totally unpredicted twin eruption! It seems truly impossible and miraculous too, for the two eruptions are identical not only in appearance, but also in manner.  The curtain of fire created by Kilauea consolidated to a central dominating vent thirty years ago, and scientists predict that exactly the same has occurred again.  Halema’uma’u, one of the major vents when Kilauea first came to life, is the most active in the recent eruption too.  It’s been five days since the eruption, and Kilauea is continuing to ooze lava even now and the same 5 mile long discontinuous fissures that came to life in 1983 repeat as the eruption continues to crackle with fire. This episodic activity, large flows and high fountaining,         re-characterize Kilauea as the most active surface volcano in the world.  Kilauea is 3,646 ft. deep with a circumference of 8 mi., and the Goddess Pele’s dance seems to have shifted to an invigorated beat.  This shield volcano is located on a hot spot in the middle of the Pacific Plate, and is part of the Ring of Fire.  This volcano is unique- it is only a satellite to its much larger twin neighbor, but it was discovered to have its own plumbing system over 60km deep! As the magma from the past eruption did not solidify in the conduit of the volcano, which would have cut off the supply of magma that comes from the magma plume and made it dormant, this volcano is still active but non-explosive. This is because the great shield was formed by lava with low silica levels and a low amount of gas which made the runny lava run down its sides, but the lava that drenched the flanks of Kilauea today was charged with gas making it explode in high fountains!  Thus,  for all the facts and numbers of a historic volcanic eruption to repeat them selves with such exact accuracy is an exception! It came as a surprise to everyone.  Young Hawaiian Dylan Sawyer can definitely justify that, when balls of fire came raining through his room…

 I stopped reading right then.  I was on the Internet.  My life’s dream.

I was officially famous.  But you guys know the rest of the story- it’s all over the place.  There’s just one more thing to say, and I’m talking to you now, Mrs. Hemlock- I didn’t set my shoes on fire for nothing.  I’d better get that chocolate volcano.